


shattered fragments

by lionsenpai



Series: Prisoner AU [3]
Category: Drag-On Dragoon | Drakengard
Genre: Bad end, prisoner au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6571117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionsenpai/pseuds/lionsenpai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The original draft for BtF chapter 5. Definitely read that first before you read this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shattered fragments

**Author's Note:**

> most of this hasn't changed, but about 3/4ths of the way down it deviates pretty hard. if you only wanna read the new stuff, ctrl+f the following: *

She had not meant to sleep. 

One jerked in her chair, legs kicking for balance, the black around her a void even her keen senses could not penetrate. When had she risen from the floor to crawl into the armchair? When had she finally faded from consciousness? There had been no dreams to mark her slumber, only darkness, so even when she righted herself, fingertips threatening to pierce the arms of her chair, there seemed little to divide reality from the empty abyss of her mind.

For a long moment, all she knew was the sound of her own stuttering heartbeat, a burning in her chest as though she’d not drawn breath in minutes, hours. Her struggle against herself was short lived however, forgotten at the creeping trill of song, jagged across her skin. The tempo was needle-sharp but muted, unrecognizable, and One shivered.

“About time,” a voice in the dark said. Chains rattled, and in the emptiness,  One caught the edge of a figure, faint against the keep’s shifting runes. “We got company.”

Between the darkness and the song,  even those few words  seemed foreign.  One blinked, running her tongue over her teeth,  her mouth full of cotton . “Zero?”

The  fuzzy shape moved again, and this time, One caught sight of the glint of metal, the delicate centerpiece of Zero’s flower in her right eye, but there was no response save for a far off click.  One paused, her breath catching in her throat, before the sound came again, once for every beat of her heart. It grew nearer each time, until finally  it  stopped just short of the dungeon’s entrance. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, One slid forward in her seat until the soles of her boots were firm upon the ground.

The door of the dungeon groaned as it swung open, long and forlorn like a warning. Amber flashed in the darkness like the edge of a blade, and One’s song spiked, fear turning her blood to ice. Instinct  alone stilled her, waiting for her eyes to adjust without giving herself away, but before she had the chance, light filled the dungeon with a reverberating pop, chasing shadows from even the darkest corners.

Before her, Five stood armored as though for battle, a paper charm held carelessly between her fingers, the end crackling with an unusual flame. One  flinched, turning aside from the sudden brightness, but not before recognizing the glyphs on the charm as those for fire, the smell of ink still fresh upon the paper as it burned—her own magicians? 

“ _ Dear sister _ .”  Five's song came alive suddenly as if released from a hold, its absence more striking than the strange,  dark symphony theirs created  all together —One, Zero and Five . “ After all the progress we made with our little chat yesterday, I'm so  _ disappointed _ to find you here  once again . ”

There was danger in Five's tone, echoing bitter and twisted in the notes of her song, a warning knell One could not ignore. Instinct alone pulled One to her feet, but before she could speak, steel flashed, Five drawing her bladed lance from over her shoulder, levelling it at One’s throat with a severe frown.

“Take a seat, sister.”

One swallowed, her thoughts stuttering over the true threat in Five’s tone and the gleam of light down the length of her lance. She didn’t sit, frozen in place, and her hesitation lasted half a beat too long. Five's eyes narrowed, her lips drawing back into a snarl.

“One - ”

Chains pulled taut with a metallic snap from within the cell, and Zero surged towards the bars.  “What the fuck are you playing at,  Five ?”

Zero's foolish impulsivity  was something One had found the greatest fault in . She was impatient, she was brash, and she seemed entirely allergic to thinking ahead— and yet, crumbs of relief filled One as Five’s sharp gaze shifted towards Zero instead.

The distraction didn’t last long. Five turned from her with the subtlest twitch of the lips, her displeasure growing. One felt her mouth open, but still words failed her, her hands trembling at her sides. That Five would bare steel at her… She’d known her sister no longer trusted her, but she’d _hoped_ …

Amber burned like wildfire in the vibrant light of the charm. “Don’t make me repeat myself, One.”

With  no alternative left to her, One lowered slowly back into the chair.  Her obedience was rewarded instantly,  Five lifting her lance, tucking it by her shoulder instead—but never removing her hand from the crossguard. She turned, touching the paper charm to the end of a torch,  before  extinguishing it with a twist of her fingers. Without the unnatural illumination of the magical flame, her face sharpened into angles. 

“Thank you,” Five said finally,  voice tight and controlled as she scanned the room. 

Her gaze settled on something beside One, and she moved forward, leaning over the chair, so close One could feel the heat of her skin, inhale nothing but wine and summer.  Old comfort and new horror warred in her chest, h er hands fisting uselessly on her thighs. Before she could work up the gall to reach out now , Five was gone, Zero’s dragonbone blade  held loosely at her side.

“You won’t be needing this. After all, now that we’re  finally gathered together—”

Zero’s chains jerked again as she snapped, “Hey! Get your slimy hands off my sword!”

Irritation cut across Five’s features. “—I think it’s time we  _ talked _ .  This secret-keeping habit  of yours has become  somewhat  bothersome—”

“You deaf or something? Drop it, you—”

Metal shorn, a terrible screech filling the dungeon. The arc of Five’s spear sparked as it cleaved through the bars of Zero’s cell, leaving gouges an inch deep. Zero paled within her cell, but rallied  so quickly One  wondered if she might  had imagined her momentary fright. 

“Oh,  _ Five _ . Now I'm really shaking in my boots.”

“The next time,” Five hummed, a line of tension wrought through her voice. “It won’t be the bars I cut.”

Zero’s harsh laughter rang through the room. “You think I’m scared of you?  Of something I could do in my goddamn sleep? You’re gonna need something  a lot stronger than  steel to put me in the ground, Five. I’d tear you to pieces before you ever figured it out.”

“Dragonbone? Yes, I know all about its  _ effectiveness _ .”  Five  turned to face Zero fully, but for the briefest moment, her  gaze flickered across to One . Approaching the bars, she  continued , “My lance was ill-suited to the task when we fought before, but it’s recently undergone some… Upgrades. The ironworkers of Cathedral City work fast, don’t you think? When I brought them the materials, they were only too happy to edge my lance with dragonbone.”

Her teeth flashed, white as the new edge of her spear in the crackling light of the torch. “I daresay I have _exactly_ what I need to put you in the ground now, Zero. Perhaps I’d save our dear sister the _heartache_ of doing it herself. You two have grown _ever_ _so close_ in recent months, but the last time I checked, you were still due an execution.”

“Just try me, you piece of of shit!” Zero raged forward. “If you’ve got the guts for it!”

“Oh, you'll find it has little to do with _me_ ,” Five murmured. Once again, her eyes fell upon One. “What do you say, sister? You always were too kind, too willing to show mercy to those who would see our end. Tell me this—these secrets, even _Zero_...  Is this merely your misguided mercy? Do you simply find yourself unable to execute one of your own? Tell me if you’re in need of a heavier hand, and I will serve you faithfully now—as I always have.”

At once, One  recognized  the truth of Five's words. She need only nod , and Zero’s blood would run. Her sister would waste no time on the trivialities of a public execution. Here, in this dungeon, with no one to bear witness but One herself, Five would slay Zero. 

And then she would turn upon the vault. 

When One was stripped of her teeth and claws, when Five made her harmless, docile,  only then would she be allowed to return to her breast, Five’s fingers in her hair, watchful for even a hint of straying,  even as the world around them burned. 

With Five's gaze pinning her own, the thrum of her song willing her to cede, abandon her values for the love of her sisters,  to just  _ give in… _

It would be so easy. For one long moment, One wavered. 

“I’ve had enough of your shit, Five!"  Zero's voice came like the crack of a whip, snapping One's reverie and the seductive hold of Five's song like cotton thread. "Give me my sword, and I’ll show you  an execution !”

“Five,” One said slowly, her voice perfectly even  no matter the way her mouth curdled in terror at what might have been . “Where did you get the dragonbone?”

Five examined her at length, fingers playing along the shaft of her lance,  for all the world as  though she had to think about her answer. “The vault, dear sister.”

One's jaw clenched. “And my ironworkers.  I strictly forbade them from using dragonbone after they created Zero’s chains. What did you tell them to convince them to work  with such material ?”

Stark in the flickering light of the torch, Five’s expression flattened, her eyes watchful, unblinking. Without humor, she asked, “Can anyone truly say  _ no _ to an Intoner?”

One closed her eyes, reading the cold truth beyond the slippery words. 

_ Five... _

Drawing closer, Five demanded, “Well, One? What will it be?”

Even through the symphony of their songs, One could feel the quick trill of Zero’s song, feel the  freezing  doubt lock ing up her joints,  making her snarl. Five was a font of song, swelling with it until it was nearly overpowering. Every note was so familiar, and One struggled to separate their combined melodies. 

When she opened her eyes again, Five was wrought of shadows and edges, body tense and taut like a bowstring. There was no softness to her, no love. 

“You will leave Cathedral City,” One said, firm even if her hands trembled. “Now _. _ ”

“Is that your choice?” Five only blinked, but her lips curled with disgust. “ _ Banishment _ ?”

One rose to her feet at last. “ _ Now _ .”

Something dark consumed Five, her face foreign to One, no matter how many times she’d traced those features with her fingers, her mouth. Stiffly, she said , “I see. But I will be rid of Zero before I go.”

Conflicting with the terrible calm of her tone, song exploded in the dungeon, and the bars of Zero’s cell groaned and bent inward beneath the power of Five’s will. The sound of Zero’s back impacting the wall was hard, no flesh on her to cushion her bones. Five advanced, moving in on Zero’s crumpled body, the dragonbone blade in one hand, her spear in the other, silent as an axeman, every inch of her carved into acute focus. 

“Fuck—” Zero wheezed, trying to pull herself up  before the finishing blow came .

Five flipped the grip on her spear, prepared to drive it through Zero’s soft neck, but One was there in an instant, catching her sister by the arm, strength straining against Five’s, her teeth grit. 

“ _ No _ ,” she hissed. “You won’t touch her. You will go!”

Combustible, volatile, Five’s demeanor shattered in an instant, her expression animalistic, furious. In her marrow, One knew fear, every cell within her screaming in unison, but still she held her dearest of sisters at bay. 

“I will  _ not _ ! What spell has she used? What has she done to enthrall you?” The dragonbone blade sliced through the air, but before it could reach Zero, One caught that arm as well, holding her sister back as a final bastion between Zero and death. Five snarled right in her face, vicious, seething, denied at every avenue. “Or am I seeing this from the wrong angle? You keep her under lock and key, play at being her master. Perhaps it’s not her hand which tug at the strings, but yours! And that flower—is death all we have to fear from you, One?”

The accusation was a knife to One's stomach, but she didn't relent. She couldn't. “You have nothing to fear from me!”

“ _ Experiments _ , One? I jested then, One, but perhaps I  sensed , somehow—”

At her feet, Zero clambered to her knees. “One!  Quit playing around and—-”

Notes of screeching song  swallowed Zero's words in a dizzying swell, the cacophony of it ripping  through One like a blade,  her retort catching in her throat . She choked on it, her own song shuddering and twisting beneath the onslaught, nausea festering deep in her gut —but she held. 

Unprepared and off-guard, Five hadn't fared so well, staggering back a step and then two, Zero's dragonbone blade held slack at her side. A  glance to her pale, strained expression told One all she needed to know—no matter their opposition, this at least was not a danger of Five's making. 

Before One could find her tongue, those discordant notes screeched through the keep once more, diamond-forged and blade sharp. Instinctively, One coiled her song about herself, protective, but the foreign, jagged notes cut through the effortless symphony of her song with the precision of a meat clever, mangling it, leaving her gasping for air and swaying on the spot. Skin crawling, she had to reach for the walls by Zero to steady herself against its effects, her head throbbing in time with the erratic, racing beat.

" _ Shit! _ " One heard Zero choke out, breathless.

Before her, Five clutched at her throat,  gaping . She seemed to rally at the sound of Zero's voice,  her gaze snapping to One's, her eyes burning with reignited fury— as though she truly believed One could be responsible.

"What—Is—This?" Five bit out, her song bleeding from her in wild, defensive waves. 

Though she dared not look down, One’s mind flickered to Zero, on those delicate petals  sprouting from her eye.  It looked so deceptively harmless, but  she recalled the way Zero had complained  of its influence, the way it never let her rest. At times, when the torches burned low and the darkness closed in, One  sometimes believed she could feel the seductive notes, crawling across her skin like a caress.

Even now, One could feel the familiar echo lingering deep in the chaotic song around them. 

_ The flower.  _

The flower's song was more  dissonance than symphony ,   more twists and sudden plummets  than rhythm , each more cutting than the last, surging like waves in a storm. The stones beneath One's feet trembled from the force of it, but she was able to narrow in on the source—o _ utside the keep _ .

“What have you done, One?” Five hissed, her pretty face contorted into rage. “Answer me!”

One could only stare at her, breath frozen in her throat, a million words on her tongue and  all of them wanting . The flower, One wanted to say,  had always wanted to say . But  what use would such information be to Five , without the wealth of context One had, the hours of research, the knowledge that her cause was just?

How could she explain, when its song screeched through her like nails down a chalkboard, fraying her every attempt  at thought ?

No longer satisfied to wait on One's response,  Five bared her teeth  and bit out a curse. Lance in hand, she flashed toward the dungeon's entrance and up the stairs beyond. 

_ Five.  _ Yawning terror opened up in the depths of One's stomach as she  recalled the Mercurial Gate, the way her sisters had hung limp—dead—upon the black mass .  _ Not Five. Anyone but Five.  _ _ For all the trouble she has caused, I cannot allow her to face the flower alone!  _

One had to follow her,  _ save her _ , but she was barely half a step gone when something harsh and desperate closed hard about her wrist. Jerking, One looked down to where Zero's fingers curled like claws,  weak and fragile.

_ Five _ , her mind insisted, but the resigned  expression on Zero's face stopped her short, left her rooted in place for just long enough. 

"We're too late." 

One's stomach clenched in on itself, and she looked down on Zero, half a twitch away from breaking free. "You cannot stop me, Zero, or she will—"

"Shut up! You know what's up there, just as well as I do! You spent too long messing around and now we've got no time left because  _ the flower _ —"

The chaotic song surged again, drowning out Zero's words once more, the force of it sending sweat prickling down One's spine. 

"Just like the Mercurial Gate," One  muttered , looking back to where Five had been, her mind lingering on the foggy memories she had of that battle with the lords. Five had died and the flower had almost bloomed, and Zero—

One's gaze snapped back to Zero, her jaw setting. 

_ Zero _ . Zero had been the difference between victory and defeat  then , and  now she was  the one trump card left to One. A final chance to make things right. Zero seemed to read it in her expression, because in the space of a moment, the bleakness fled from her features.

"Yeah." Zero's teeth bared then, the savage grin of a predator. "Just like that. And if you want a shot at surviving this again, you know what you have to do.  _ Now _ , One."

One knew what she'd promised just the night prior—just as she knew how dangerous Zero would be,  a wildcard One did not know how to control . But things had already  unraveled with Five, and with the pervasive, merciless circle of that song above them…

What more did One have to lose? 

“One,” Zero’s voice was low and serious, her grasp tightening about One's wrist. “Let. Me.  _ Out _ .”

One exhaled, shuddering and low,  and pulled away, her eyes locked on the dragonbone chains that bound Zero and her abilities both.  Zero watched her for signs of faltering, ravenous and unblinking, her face fixed into unsettling focus. Those chains were all which held Zero, the culmination of everything One had sacrificed to protect her sisters, but they fell away  with a burst of song like they were nothing at all. 

There was a moment of silence after the shackle hit the ground, Zero's breath still ragged and short, but One couldn’t find it in herself fill it. Without a word, she turned and sprinted from the dungeon. She took the stairs two at a time, heart in her throat and Zero forgotten behind her, her mind fixed on Five, _Five_ and whatever chaos awaited her above the keep.   
  
As she hit the final landing, another flux of warped song nearly sent her to her knees. She steadied herself on the stone wall, but she couldn't afford more than a fleeting press of her fingertips to her temples before forcing herself on with gritted teeth.   
  
Ahead of her, Five had thrown aside the bars on the doors, leaving them ajar, the morning light streaming inside for the first time in months. One closed the distance, throwing them further open without care, her song coiled about her body in tight defence.   
  
Before her, the plaza extended toward the horizon, only to drop off suddenly. It had been there that Gabriel’s flames had robbed Zero of her arm, Michael of his life. The damages from that battle had ultimately been too great to repair, the tiles and pillars left gouged from where weapons kissed them in the heat of battle.  
  
She'd been a fool to hope it would be the last battle this blighted city would ever see, the last tragedy that would stain the steps of her bastion. Looking out upon the plaza now, One's gaze fell on Five, the tumble of golden curls down her back. She was hunched slightly, her hands set on the shoulders of someone of smaller stature.  
  
“Five - !” One began, but caution and the foreign song bid her show restraint, taking the steps from the keep at an angle. Tension screamed in her every muscle until she felt fit to tremble with it, but she would be ready for anything.  
  
Anything, but what she found.   
  
Two, splattered in carnage and who knew what else, the two blades clutched in each hand painted red. Two, her skin veined in pale blue, climbing along her legs like ivy, like faultlines buried in her flesh. Two, _who should not have been here_ , now, like _this_. One's iron will failed her then, and all she could do was watch, mute, as Five snapped her fingers in front of Two's eye.   
  
Two didn't respond, only staring up into Five's face, her eye dull and unseeing. From the other socket, a flower had sprouted, its blue petals seeming to quiver the moment One's gaze fell on it.   
  
Zero's flower flashed to mind again and again until One could no longer deny the link between her sister's presence and the undulating threat of song.    
  
“Two,” One whispered, her knees going weak, her whole body trembling.  
  
At her voice, Five jerked, twisting away from Two as though burned. If One expected sympathy from her sister now, however, she was sorely mistaken. Five's eyes only reflected hot fury, and she was beside One in a rush of wind to seize her by the collar with fingers like claws.   
  
“ _One_ ,” Five spat. "What madness possessed you? First Zero, now _Two_ —”  
  
One flinched. “I didn’t—”  
  
“Enough of the lies!”  
  
“One.”  
  
It was a ghost of a whisper, song embedded in the sound, and One and Five both turned. Two advanced in a broken gait, swaying as she walked, limp from head to toe. There was no life to Two, no laughter, no love. What remained could be no more of a shell the flower had poured itself into until her body nearly burst at the seams from the strength of the song inside her.  
  
One tore away from Five’s grasp, but the moment she turned on Two, her sister roared to life like a flame reignited, one minute gone and the next an inferno. Instinct saved One where thought would have left her cleaved in half; preparing for Zero’s assault had taught her how to move, ingrained it in her body, and when Two exploded toward her, swords raised, One caught the blades on her vambraces, the edges sliding off with a terrible screech and a shower of sparks.   
  
Her voice caught in her throat as the next blow came, but she was already putting distance between herself and Two once more, practiced, precise. Before, the miasma brought by the flower's song had kept her noticing, but with the touch of the blade reverberating through her, she knew its nature: dragonbone. 

Five truly had set the city's forges to work, a weary and near spiteful part of One noted. In another time, in another place, she might have had the mind to realise her lack of surprise.    
  
“One!” she heard Five call out.   
  
One couldn't spare her the breath to answer, her song quivering dangerously at each swing of the blades, the tips just a breath shy each time of splitting her spine. She had no weapon, no defence, nothing to catch the cuts except her vambraces. 

At the edge of her mind, Gabriel stirred, dark and terrifying and absolute, and One couldn't help but recall Zero's twisted conviction, so sure of her path of blood and ruin.  _ The only way,  _ she'd sneered, time after time.

But this was Two, the best of the Intoners, the final hope that they could be something more than conquerors—and there had to be a way to save her. 

“Five!” she bellowed, before veering hard, nearly careening into one of the broken pillars to avoid the next of Two's heavy blows. The stone gouged at her heels, the fragments flying across the ground as she scrambled back. “Help me contain her!”   
  
There was no answer from Five, no affirmation or denial as she wavered, her eyes fixed on where One struggled to evade Two, hand lingering on the crossguard of her lance. Even now, the hesitation felt like a knife to One's chest. Once, Five would never have doubted, her faith in absolute—even if it were the world that stood in opposition. 

Here and now, her hesitation would mean One's end at the edge of Two's swords, each strike drawing sparks from her vambraces, every overhead blow sending shockwaves through One's joints, through her song. She staggered under each, twisting and darting away to claw back space, but Two was too fast, too relentless, every attempt at buying time shredded in an instant. 

One's breath came harsh and hot, her arms trembling as she caught the arc of each sword on each, staring up into Two's empty snarl with bared teeth. All her efforts, all her research,  _ everything she had sacrificed _ ; it would all end in vain here, not six months after Zero's assault. 

"One!" 

It came from two directions at once. Five, on the steps of the keep, her hand finally closing about the crossguard of her lance, amber eyes on Two as she raced to One's aid—and Zero, sagging hard against the open doors behind Five, breathless and gaunt as she clutched at the wrapped stump of her arm. 

The breath froze in One's throat as Five's eyes widened at the sound of Zero's voice. Her expression clouded over as she slowed, her attempts at One's aid forgotten as she turned, cold fury in her every line as she looked back to where Zero had straightened.

" _ You _ ." The word was barely more than a growl on Five's lips, all pretences cast aside for good as she drew the lance from her back.

Even from the plaza, even preoccupied by holding Two at bay, One caught the way Zero's gaze flickered from her, to Two, then to Five—and then how she shrugged, her smile a jagged, bloodthirsty thing. 

A gale of frozen premonition passed through One, and she strained hard against Two, desperate to put herself between Five and Zero. Two bore down on her harder, vacant laughter echoing through her very bones, the screeching overtures of song leaving her reeling. 

"You want a piece of me, Five?" One heard Zero snarl, and then she threw her head back and screamed, physical manifestation of her song flooding from every pore. " _ Come and get it! _ "

Even weakened from captivity, with her song gagged and all but useless for months, Zero was still dangerous, and it seemed as though her every hateful thought and endless hours of impotent rage had found its outlet in Five. 

"No!" One shouted, breathless. "Five— _ Zero _ ! You need to—!"

Her ultimatum fell on deaf ears, the clash of claws against the flat of Five's lance her only answer. Faced with a dragonbone edge, Zero should have been cut to ribbons, the protective layer of song over her skin parting beneath it. Five should have overpowered her in an instant, an Intoner at the height of her power, armed with dragonbone and facing a cripple with nothing left to lose. Yet they still fought, dancing around one another, rose and gold light surging with every twist and turn while One darted back out of Two's reach again, trying to circle around to them and thwarted at every turn. 

The very stone beneath One's feet quaked with Zero's song, chaotic enough to rival what had became of Two's. One hadn’t noticed it the last time she had fought Zero, more concerned with the raw power her eldest sister had at her disposal. A blunt force weapon, wielded without finesse or caution, and yet now... Feeling the flower's presence, after months of study and Zero's company, One could feel it. 

Zero sang, but it was not a song to weave a reality, to augment, to build. It was a song of chaos organised for a single purpose—to destroy, to disrupt, to bring ruin. The peaks and plummets overlaid Five's with callous efficiency, undercutting it and flaying the notes before they could gain traction, and a sickened part of One's mind could only liken Zero's song of ending to how the flower used Two's. 

Pain lanced through her arm as Two’s blade slid off the end of her vambrace, catching her just above the elbow and coming away red with her blood. Song burst from her lips by instinct, but the notes tangled in the raging song surrounding Two, shielding her from being blown away and forcing One to beat a hasty retreat.

No matter how much she’d trained to face Zero, inattention would kill her here. Gritting her teeth against the pain--real pain, not the phantom sensation of iron or steel--One stole back towards the keep, never turning her back on Two.

Her attacks came faster, harder, each one capable of cleaving One into pieces, each impossible to parry, to turn against her. 

The clash of song and dragonbone rang all around her, Zero and Five laying into each other with long withheld loathing. From the corner of her eye, she caught glimpses of them between Two’s relentless assault, Zero escaping a slash by the skin of her teeth only to return with vicious applications of song, battering Five’s defenses.

“Two--!” The air before One’s nose parted to Two’s blade, a hair away from striking. “ _ Two _ !”

Wreathed in song, Zero and Five flashed by Two’s back, Five leaping out of Zero’s reach, but instead of following her, Zero turned suddenly, springing at Two’s exposed back, keen and blood-starved. 

Two caught her strike with the flat of her blade in a movement that was near inhuman, a puppet twisted too quickly, its joints straining to accommodate. She uttered not a word, but exhaled sharply and rebuked even Zero’s incredible strength and merciless song, driving her back with quick cuts. 

“Zero!” One called, balance shifting as she drove forward, her escape forgotten as she darted forward after them. 

Before she could reach, the blur of movement at her flank forced her to veer, throwing up her arms to protect herself with the only defenses she had. The strike never came. 

Panting and unsteady, One found herself face to face with Five, her lance bared, the dragonbone edge slick with blood. Amber stared back at her, expression shifting from something feral into abrupt upheaval, a stop made mid-sprint, momentum nearly too great to stop. 

But she did, and the world stopped with her, the two of them frozen. One huddled behind her vambraces, fight or flight, and Five hunched forward as though half-way through a thrust, her skin dimming with the power of her song until her nothing could hide the horror twisting her face. 

One could read it clearly, trace the identical grimace and wide eyes that she herself wore, feel the question pounding through Five’s veins like a sickness:  _ how had they come to this _ ?

That question reverberated through the two of them, their songs waning into discord, desperate in their despair. 

“One!”

The moment shattered like glass, their understanding falling to pieces with it as One jerked, moving just in time to avoid a blow which gouged the earth where she’d been standing. Two’s song dragged across One’s skin, and in her haste, One dove towards Five.

Her lance shifted, Five’s eyes going wide in surprise, but instead of skewering One, she let her pass, putting herself between Two and One with an expression that One could no longer parse. It couldn’t have been loyalty which made her catch Two’s next attack in One’s stead--One prayed it might have been love. 

Spinning on her heel, she turned just in time to see Five’s lance batted aside by Two’s strength, her one-handed grip incapable of stopping it. A guttural cry of pain tore through the air as Two’s thrust struck home, opening Five’s flesh just above her hip and sending her down to one knee, lance and blade clattering to the ground as Five clutched at her side. She scrambled to escape the next attack, greaves scrapping over the cement, but she needn’t have tried. 

Two was a freight train, her eyes locked on One, and she didn’t even spare Five another glance as she rushed passed her.

One darted back and away from the wide arc of Two's blade again, breath ragged. She couldn't hesitate, not for a moment, but the sight of Five cut down had been seared into her mind's eye, no different than had been branded there. Five had put herself between One and the flower, Five was bleeding on the ground—

It was a fatal flaw in her focus. As if sensing One's moment of weakness, Two raged forward faster than she could track, the flower's song keening sharp as the blade she brought down in an overhead strike that would bisect One where she stood.

Desperate, the song burst from One's throat in a blind parry, and she drew on it, deeper than she'd ever dared just to galvanise it against the chaos of the flower's own song. Red light—song made manifest—condensed before her, an insurmountable barrier once designed for Zero alone.

Two's blade came down against it hard. Even with song like a reservoir between them, One felt the reverberations of the dragonbone edge right through to her bones as the barrier absorbed the impact.

Beyond the barrier, Two muscles corded, the edge of her blade drawing sparks against song as she strained against One's defences. The red light washed her skin, her expression stark and savage and starving for One's blood, and relentless, she pressed her blade forward no matter how her arms trembled, how the threads of song in her flesh began to pulse and grow.

One's eyes widened as Two's teeth bared in a grin then, black ichor dripping from the corner of her mouth, the petals of the flower in her eye seeming to flutter and unfurl ever more as if responding to One's closeness. That barrier of song was all that lay between One and the edge of Two's sword, and instinctively, she drew deeper on her song until it rang in her veins.

It would all be worth it if only Two could be stopped—but it was not  _ enough,  _ no matter how deeply One drew, how much of herself she threw into her song. Two advanced in slow, deliberate steps, an unfeeling puppet, pushing her sword and then her shoulder inside the barrier. One was powerless but to watch Two's flesh crackle and smoke on her bones, eaten away by One's song only to be mended just as fast by the flower.  

One's gut twisted, horrified, but no matter how One's mind wanted to scream  _ demon,  _ it was Two,  _ Two— _

Over Two's shoulder, warped and distorted by red song, One saw Zero. She knelt where Five had fallen, and her lips curled in a smile, she took hold of her dragonbone blade so many months after her defeat at One's hands. A chill ran down One's spine at the sight of the reunion, and a part of her feared Zero would turn on Five and send it right through her throat, but Zero instead looked to One.

*

_ "Zero!" _ One shouted, rallying against Two's strength, doubling down on her song. " Now! Take her now! "

If only Zero could  disarm her, hold her down, perhaps together they could contain her. Perhaps then they could work on a way to  _ save  _ her. One tasted blood at the back of her throat as her song raged at the edge of her control, her shoulders knotting as she tried to force Two back –

With a roar and a burst of song, Zero closed the distance between them. Two staggered as Zero opened up her back in a vertical slice. She turned half a step, blood splattering to the ground, but before One could shout for Zero to stop, to capture, not kill, Zero pivoted, reversing the hold on her blade.  She brought the edge across Two's exposed throat, blood spraying from the bone-deep gash she opened.

The world seemed to slow as she watched  her fall, horror freezing her blood, and her song’s protection crashed to the ground with Two’s body . The veins of blue light drained away, leaving gaping cracks in their wake, the flower in her eye-socket withering and turning to dust even as she reached blindly for whatever was left of her throat.

One stumbled for her, heedless of the debris and danger, and she turned Two over with shaking hands, reaching for song even though there was no healing a  wound made from dragonbone. Two's remaining eye focused on One's face then, and she knew then that she'd never forget the pure terror in Two's eye in the moment before she died. 

“ _ One! _ ”

Song shook the plaza, tremors of it sinking deep into One’s marrow. The hair at the nape of her neck prickled, the beginnings of her grief curdling at the return of such a distorted melody.

It screeched, palpable in the air, and One shuddered, looking up at the same time as Zero. Across from them, kneeling in a puddle of her own blood, Five gripped at the staff of her lance, her face contorted with pain and rage. The gash at her waist spurted, and she grit her teeth and clutched at  it with frightful callousness , forcing herself to her  unsteady feet. 

Even from this distance, hatred darkened her features until the glow of song began to seep from her skin, brilliantly gold, bright and blinding like the sun. 

“ _ Fuck _ \--” she cursed, the ground beneath their feet quaking with song. Her thighs trembled, the blood at her feet proof she shouldn’t have been capable  of rising  at all, yet she looked no less savage for her grievous injury. “You fucking-- _ traitor _ !”

Zero’s heels scraped across the stone, and she swung her sword, Two’s blood spattering across the ground. She bared her teeth in a vicious grin, her flesh adorned in shallow cuts from her bout with Five . “You should see your face, Five!”

“No--” One’s gaze snapped between the two of them, her  front dyed crimson . Her grip on Two tightened, holding her closer as though there were something to protect within her still. “Please,  _ Zero _ \--”

“I should have known.” Five’s voice cracked,  her shoulders bunching , body tense. She exploded forward, pulling back her lance for a wide swing,  but Zero was in front of her in a second, the clash of their weapons deafening. Five leaned into the collision, blood gushing from her side as though she didn’t feel it. “ _ I should have known! _ ”

“Come on, Five,” Zero snarled, right in her face, the beginnings of song manifesting along her flesh. “I’m on a roll, and you know what they say about going big or going home!”

One shuddered at Zero's words, thrown in Five's face like a challenge. She had to stop  this -  _ them _ \- before... Her gaze drifted to Two’s neck, opened in a ghastly smile, and suddenly she couldn’t bear the sight of her, recoiling from the body and scrambling to her feet, nausea rising as bile in the back of her throat.

And still , Five bore down on Zero with ungodly strength, the sound of her song swelling with each passing second. It soared, higher and higher than One would have believed possible, until it bled from her, rising from her skin like smoke, igniting her flesh as she forced Zero back. 

“Out of the way, Zero!” Five growled, her every pretense lost, but it was not to her eldest sister that she looked to. Her amber eyes burned through One, hatred and fury in equal parts. 

"You should know by now--I don't take orders from  _ you _ !" Zero's snarl was nearly drowned out by the clash of metal upon metal, again and again, but whatever power Five now drew from, her strength far outmatched Zero's meagre reserves. 

Zero scrambled back beneath the force of Five's blow, sparks drawn along the lance's edge as it gouged through stone, but even the threat of true death wasn't enough to make that bloodthirsty grin fade. Time and time again, she forced herself between Five and that which she wanted the most.

At every move, every advance, Zero was there, thwarting Five's rage, and even as blood spurted from her side with the violence of their clashes, Five only drove forward harder, each strike earth-shattering. 

For all Zero's defence of One-- if that was her intent \-- there was no withstanding Five's strength,  her savage assaults. She would cleave Zero into pieces and then... A quiver of dreadful realization overtook her: Five would enact deathly recompenses for the secrets, for Two and whatever love between them One had culled with her grandiose intentions .

Their failure would be  their ends \-- and the world’s too.

Before her, Five advanced, clashing with Zero again, not to be refused, more a force of nature and boundless song than the sister One had so cherished. 

“One!” Five screamed, her voice raw with the sheer intensity of her song, reverberating into the very foundations of the keep as she brought her lance down on Zero's block. “ You  _ liar _ !”

This--here in the keep, surrounded by horrors and at the whim of the flower--could not be how the world ended. 

Zero's song faltered, the notes of it growing discordant and weak as Five twisted, and with a flourish, she struck Zero’s blade away, lunging forward in a fatal thrust.

One was between them in an instant, Two's blade in hand as she pivoted, twisting the weapon beneath Five's own with what song she could muster, turning her aside with brutal, practiced efficiency.  Zero rushed by in pursuit of her sword, but One had only eyes for Five, the faint contours of surprise visible even beneath layers of blazing song.

“One - !”

Five must have overextended, One would think back in the weeks to come. Perhaps it was Five's own emotions,  enraged and betrayed , or perhaps it was something more sinister, a disappointing puppet finally having its strings cut.

So certain of the power she wielded,  so intent on using it to break and batter, Five had forgotten to defend. 

Acting on instinct honed by war, months of training for her final stand with Zero,  One drove her sword home, all of Five’s momentum pulling her toward the point of the blade. 

The strike tore through flesh and bone as if it were nothing, motion and fury brought to a screeching halt on the edge of One’s blade, pushed in nearly to the hilt between Five’s breasts. A shuddering cough left her, and Five swayed, the heat of her song beginning to dissipate, streaks of gold evaporating into the air to reveal the face beneath.

Blood sunk through One’s gloves, staining them beyond repair, but One couldn’t look away, seeing nothing but Five, the pain coalescing on her expression as her off hand rose to touch the sword buried within her. 

Her fingers brushed against One’s, a choked sound of surprise catching in her throat, and One’s mouth trembled, so close she was nearly pressed into the crook of her sister’s neck. 

Her body jerked and went weak, lance clattering to the ground at her side as she slumped bonelessly, song driven from her body by the blade in her chest. The song  couldn’t protect her. It couldn’t save her.

And neither could One. 

“Five - ”

There was a  heart-wrenching tear as Zero’s sword burst from Five’s body, a hair shy of cutting One as well. Behind her, Zero grunted, and  Five’s head fell forward , body convulsing weakly, hacking up blood.  Her knees buckled , but One and Zero held her there, suspended between them on the points of their swords. 

Her lips wet upon One’s shoulder, she drew her final shaky breaths, and, muffled into One’s skin, whispered, “ _ Traitor _ .”

One closed her eyes and turned her face into Five’s neck, hearing the beats of her heart slow and then stop altogether, yet there was nothing she could say, nothing that would make Five’s words any less true. She carried the blood of her sisters on her hands, and in the end, all of her love and all of her intentions meant  _ nothing _ .

 

**Author's Note:**

> for maximum effect, listen to the five/one [playlist](http://lionsenpai.tumblr.com/post/142774656208/strange-strangers-wine-red-the-hush-sound) i posted earlier and also stare at the [picture](http://lionsenpai.tumblr.com/private/131725410458/tumblr_nwho0e3LlA1r0taxo) i drew probably six months ago.
> 
> tfw your fav is shit but she's still your fav :')


End file.
